ISF International Day

Anaëlle got to visit the International School of Frankfurt in all its glory today. It was International Day, a day where ISF becomes a cultural learning place as students, parents, and visitors explore five focus country rooms, participate in Sports Spass events (traditional sports from the featured countries), view theater performances, and eat wonderful home-made cakes.

The day began with Opening Ceremonies. Flags from the home nations of ISF families where paraded across the stage -- 50 all together -- and finally, the ISF flag graced the stage. The five focus countries were Australia, China, Japan, Kenya and Turkey.

A Japanese fan dancer began the cultural presentations.

There is only one family from Australia, so they enlisted the help of a first grade class and some teachers to lead in the singing of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, a song I remember learning from somewhere when I was little.

I don't know enough about photography to take a clear picture of energetic Turkish dancers.

The audience favorite, however, was the Tai Chi Fighting Fan demonstration.

The first time he flicked his wrist and the fan snapped open with a loud crack, the kids oohed and aahed.

There were tables set up with items for sale from many places around the world: Polish Pottery, African jewelry, Girl Scout cookies, etc.

The main activity of the day for the kids is to get their Passports stamped. They must visit each Focus country room where they earn that country's stamp by successfully answering a sheet of questions about that country. The answers are found somewhere in the displays set up around that room. Then it's down to the gym to earn another set of passport stamps by participating in games from those counties.

When completed, the passports are put into a tombola (raffle) and there were rumors flying about what the prizes would be.

In the Turkey room, we got to sample Turkish Delight, that treat mentioned so prevalently in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Whenever the kids would ask me "But Mom, what is Turkish Delight?," I would have no good answer. Now we all know it's a starch and sugar candy flavored with rosewater, mastic or lemon.

Emilie learned that Noah's Ark ended up settling on a mountain top in Turkey.

International diplomacy at work as some Japanese girls visit the Kenya room. There was a slide show being projected on the wall featuring pictures from a recent trip to Kenya by an ISF teacher. She brought some supplies to a Kenyan school and I remember Emilie telling me last week that the teacher talked about how over the moon the Kenyan students were to receive a new pencil.

The girls painted animal masks in Kenya....

.... and David and I sampled Vegemite, a food paste made from yeast extract, in Australia.

Rebecca getting her name written in Chinese. The amount of work that went into these focus country rooms was very impressive.

After getting this origami Pokémon, Emilie excitedly exclaimed, "Mom, guess what?  I just found out that Pikachu is really popular in Japan!"  What else can you say but, "Well, Pikachu does come from Japan, Sweetie." Emilie was shocked by that revelation.

Becca asked to be painted as Pikachu at the facepainting table.

I don't think she intended to look like Pikachu from your worst nightmare.

Emilie chose a pretty headband.

Passports completed, the kids awaited the raffle drawing. There were twenty drawings, with prizes of everything from 25 Euro Land's End giftcards (they are our uniform providers), to remote control cars, to Frankfurt Skyliners t-shirts (that's our local professional basketball team), but the big prize of the day was...

.... the Samsung flatscreen TV, which we didn't win. But the kids didn't go home empty-handed.

Every student who participated in International Day received one of these very nice ISF coffee cups. But for the record, there were more raffle drawings at school the following Monday and Emilie won a Land's End gift card and James won a Skyliners t-shirt.

Wiesbaden

Anaëlle and I needed to get out of the house and take a break from English lessons, and the city of Wiesbaden made the perfect little morning trip. Wiesbaden is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe. Its name literally means "meadow baths". At one time, Wiesbaden boasted 27 hot springs. Fifteen of the springs are still flowing today.

Our first stop would be the Kurhaus ("spa house). We strolled along the Theater Kolonnade that lead up to the Kurhaus and it was a shame that most of the stores along the Kolonnade were closed.

The Kurshaus (spa house) was built about a hundred years ago and houses performance halls and a famous casino. 

Inside the lobby of the Neo-Classical Kurhaus

The Kurhaus of Wiesbaden, with its magnificent ballrooms, is frequently the venue for traditional cultural events, open-air concerts and ballet performances.

Opposite the Theater Kolonnade is the Kurhaus Kolonnade which was built in 1827 and is the longest hall in Europe supported by pillars.

Here is Anaëlle at the Kochbrunnen, Wiesbaden's most famous sodium-chloride thermal spring.   Over 2,000 years ago, the Romans who settled here found springs that carried hot thermal water to the surface. Throughout its history, people have flocked to the town to bath in its waters that are said to have curative properties.

The temperature of the water at the Kochbrunnen is 66°C (151°F) and it gushes 346 liters (91 gallons) of mineral water per minute. The water is said to be good for your skin and digestion. The last time I was here, people of all ages were dipping their hands in the water and spreading it on their skin and drinking the water, too.

And it was at this point that I realized that as much as visiting a popular place in the height of tourist season can be a pain, at least you would experience a festive atmosphere.  Here at one of Wiesbaden's most famous sites, there was no one but us on this gloomy morning.  And the atmosphere was gloomy.  I think I would prefer a happy crowd over no one at all.    I told Anaëlle that this spring was famous and people are usually crowding around it, but I don't know if she believed me.

I made Anaëlle touch the water to see how hot it was.  Not only is it hot, it smells.

We both sampled the water the Kochbrunnentempel.

It was extremely salty and for both of us, a few sips was enough.

Strolling through town, we passed the Heidenmauer ("Heathen Wall"), the last remnants of the Roman aqueduct of Aquae Mattiacorum.

Finding a new friend at the Steiff stuffed animal shop

We stopped in the Gummi bear store and bought regular, red hot chili and Cuba Libre gummi bears.

The Marktkirche, the largest Protestant Church in Wiesbaden

A golden lion watches over Market Fountain in front of Wiesbaden's oldest historical monument the Old Town Hall, built in 1610.

Twilight Game

 

While shopping on the Zeil yesterday, Anaëlle and I came across a Twilight movie board game. I felt so bad that we didn't get to see New Moon, which Anaëlle had not see at all, not even in French and she's a big Twilight fan, so I thought playing this board game might be be a decent consolation prize.

 

It quickly became apparent that playing this game would be more involved than I had anticipated. There was the minor issue of the entire game and all the instructions being, of course, in German. So, there we were looking like that hilarious episode from the Frasier sitcom where a distraught husband only spoke German, Frasier's maid translated what he said into Spanish and then Frasier had to translate the Spanish into English for his brother Niles (yes, I know, it was inspired by a much older episode of I Love Lucy). Basically, David had to translate each step of the directions into English for me and the kids and I in turn would translate into French for Anaëlle. With the trivia questions, the kids understood the German, but I would still need to explain the questions to Anaëlle -- at least the English parts she didn't understand. You can imagine how this slowed down the playing of the game.

 

By the way, you can see some whipped cream, jelly, butter and strawberries on the table -- the remnants of our crêpe dessert, our little attempt to make Anaëlle feel more at home with us.

In the end, the game had too many silly "rolling dice" tasks and not enough trivia questions (see how Micaela is half-asleep?), but we learned some German and Anaëlle learned some more useful English words and phrases, such as "red pick-up truck" and "Edward thirsts for Bella's blood."

A Visitor's Day in Frankfurt

On Sunday, David and I drove to the Frankfurt Airport and picked up Anaëlle, the granddaughter of the French couple I had lived with during my junior year abroad in Brittany, France. Anaëlle wanted to work on her English and we were happy to welcome her into our home for two weeks.

Germany is not the most exciting place to visit in the winter. The weather can pose a problem and many touristy sights, such as the castles on the Rhein, close down during the gloomy winter months. I was hoping we could think of enough things to keep Anaëlle from experiencing the winter doldrums.

Today was the last day the Turmpalast, a movie theater in the city that shows films in their original languages, would be showing Twilight: New Moon.  Hey, that counts as an English activity, right?  Why not take a trip into Frankfurt?

Frankfurt is one of only three cities in the European Union that have a significant number of skyscrapers. With 10 skyscrapers (i.e. buildings taller than 150 m or 492 ft) as of 2009, Frankfurt is second behind Paris with 14 skyscrapers, and on par with London which also has 10 skyscrapers.

The Eschenheimer Turm - a 47 meter high gothic tower - is one of the few remaining towers of the medieval fortifications that encircled the city of Frankfurt. The tower was once just one of about 60 towers encircling the city. It's located directly in front of the movie theatre.

What Frankfurt looked like in the early 1600s.  If you look carefully, you can see some of the towers.

Unfortunately for us, the movie theatre changed its scheduled and decided not to show New Moon.  There was only one thing left to do:  shopping.  Just a short walk away is the Zeil, the pedestrian zone that is the principal shopping district of the city.

The Zeilgalerie shopping center has been around since 1992, but a newly-redesigned section opened last year and I had yet to go inside.

The striking design from the outside....

....and from the upper floors inside.  Here is Anaëlle, grateful that it was nice and warm in there.

We went up escalator after escalator to reach the upper-most floors, but later realized that there was an express escalator that would have zoomed us straight to the top.  There were so many fantastic stores, but it was a cold Wednesday morning and the mall was pretty empty.

Snow and ice fell from the roof down this tube.

Anaëlle seemed impressed by this sparkling mall.

Just a few blocks away is the medieval Römer, one of Frankfurt's most important landmarks. It has been the city hall or Rathaus for 600 years.  The building on the left is called the Alt-Limpurg, the middle building is the Haus Römer and the building on the right is Löwenstein Haus.  They make up the most important part of the Römerberg or Römer Plaza.

Starting in the 12th century, large trade fairs were held on the Römerberg, drawing visitors and merchants from as far as Italy and France.  The Römerberg was also the site of all kind of festivities, most importantly those celebrating the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors, who were crowned in the town hall.  During the month of December since the 1300s, this square has been the location of one of Germany's largest Christmas markets.

These buildings opposite the Römer which were destroyed during WWII were only rebuilt during the 1980s.

This street performer balanced bottles and glasses on his forehead while he played "O Susannah" on his clarinet. America can show up in some of the most unusual ways here in Europe.

Closeup of the Haus Römer with statues of  two of the four kaisers of the Holy Roman Empire.  The eagle is featured in the German coat of arms and is a symbol of Germany.

The Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Fountain of Justice) at the center of the square was built in 1543. The statue of goddess Justitia, holding the scales of justice but without her usual blindfold, faces the Römer.

On the left-hand corner of the Alt-Limpurg is the Frankfurtia, the female embodiment of the city.

Another view of the square with Frankfurt Cathedral, St. Bartholomew's,  in the distance.

The Alte Nikolaikirche, a small early gothic church built in 1290. It was used as the court chapel for the emperors until the 15th century.

An small, eroded detail on the side of Alte Nikolaikirche

Statue of Charlemagne, King of the Franks, in front of the Historical Museum located in the Römerberg.  Today Charlemagne is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans.

Detail of one of the doors of the Haus Römer.

One of the first things people usually say about Frankfurt is, "Frankfurt, like many German cities, was pretty much destroyed during WWII.  But unlike other cities which were meticulously rebuilt to recreate the pre-war appearance, Frankfurt was re-built in a modern style.  So, it's not as pretty as other German cities."  It is a shame when you consider that Frankfurt had one of Europe's largest and most well-preserved medieval centers before the war.  Only very few landmark buildings have been reconstructed historically, albeit in a simplified manner.

Here is the Römer during the 1930s....

....and in 1945.

Church steeples were often left intact to serve as visual landmarks.

As you walk around so many German cities, it's difficult to fathom the amount of work and money that went into reconstruction, whether the city planners chose to go modern or not.